Organising a creative, adventurous and contented life

March 2014

31/03/2014

My favourite days are spent pottering at home—cleaning, sorting, planning, improving. Days like this usually bring a sense of contentment and a healthy tiredness from physical activity and a sense of progress even if only small, like a freshly weeded garden or the budget sorted.

Even when I feel down, there's something about the sight of laundry fluttering on the line to help me feel that things will be okay. I tell myself that if I can manage to get the washing done and on the line, then I can tackle other challenges too.

And a good day's pottering—by its very nature—isn't all planned from start to finish. It allows time to be sidetracked by fun projects, such as cleaning this gorgeous birdcage my daughter was given. It will sit on top of her bookcase as a beautiful display that sums up her animal-loving nature (the canary and budgie are in bigger cages but this one is so attractive we can't resist keeping and displaying it sans bird!).

Do you enjoy the pleasures of a quiet life? What makes you content? How do you like to spend a day pottering?

28/03/2014

Friday night is sometimes takeaway but I had a number of ingredients in the fridge that needed using so I decided to channel Mrs Patmore (Downton Abbey) and cook up my own Italian feast.

I decided on a meatlovers pizza using leftover Pork Ragu as the topping sprinkled with lots of tasty and parmesan cheese. There was a packet of veal tortellini and diced bacon that I cooked up with onion, cheese and an egg to make a creamy bacon tortellini. There was also a garlic bread. And the last of a bottle of merlot.

30 minutes later (and with time to bring in the washing and feed the dog in between) and dinner was cooked.

No hassle ordering and picking up dinner, very low cost, and raved over by the whole family. There were even a few leftovers which we will eat for lunch tomorrow.